1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cool air supply duct of a refrigerator, and more particularly to a cool air supply duct of a refrigerator, in which positions of cool air discharge holes for supplying cool air to a freezing chamber or a refrigerating chamber are changeable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, refrigerators are apparatuses, in which a refrigerating cycle device comprising a compressor, a condenser, an expansion device, and an evaporator is installed for supplying air cooled by the evaporator to storage chambers, such as freezing and refrigerating chambers.
Recently, a cool air supply duct, which has a plurality of cool air discharge holes and is installed in the freezing or refrigerating chamber, is used to supply cool air with three-dimensional freedom.
FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view of a conventional cool air supply duct of a refrigerator, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the conventional cool air supply duct of the refrigerator.
As shown in FIG. 1, a cool air supply duct 10 for supplying cool air to a freezing or refrigerating chamber of a refrigerator 1 is buried in one side wall of the freezing or refrigerating chamber, and a plurality of racks 20 and 30, which are separated from each other in the vertical direction, are installed in the freezing or refrigerating chamber of the refrigerator 1.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the cool air supply duct 10 comprises a plurality of cool air discharge holes, which are separated from each other in the vertical or horizontal direction.
Generally, at least one rack is installed. The vertical position of the rack is adjustable.
For example, when the upper rack 20 and the lower rack 30 are provided, the upper rack 20 may upwardly move from the position of SU to the position of SU′ or downwardly move from the position of SU to the position of SU″, and the lower rack 30 may upwardly move from the position of SL to the position SL′ or downwardly move from the position of SL to the position of SL″.
Generally, the cool air discharge holes 12, 14 and 16 are located close to the racks 20 and 30 so as to supply cool air to the lower portions of the racks 20 and 30 or food stored therein. Since the positions of the cool air discharge holes 12, 14 and 16 are fixed, when a user changes the positions of the racks 20 and 30 according to sizes of food, the cool air discharge holes 12, 14 and 16 may be closed by the racks 20 and 30 or the food, thereby being incapable of discharging cool air.
That is, an interval between the upper and lower racks 20 and 30 is changed so that the racks 20 and 30 can store various-sized objects. Further, since the shapes of the racks 20 and 30 are different, when the positions of the racks 20 and 30 are arbitrarily changed, the racks 20 and 30 may close the cool air discharge holes 12, 14 and 16.
When a part of the cool air discharge holes 12, 14 and 16 (here, the cool air discharge hole 14) is closed, cool air is concentrated onto other cool air discharge holes 12 and 16 so that designated food stored in the cool air discharge holes 12 and 16 can be supercooled, and the distribution of temperature in the freezing or refrigerating chamber is not uniform so that the cooling efficiency of the refrigerator is lowered, thereby causing the stored food to rot.
Further, when the upper rack 20 downwardly moves from the position SU to the position SU″ and the lower rack 30 upwardly moves from the position of SL to the position SL′, cool air is not discharged to a middle space of A, thereby causing a difficulty in maintaining the freshness of food stored in the middle space of A.
The cool air supply duct 10 is buried in one side wall of the freezing or refrigerating chamber, thereby increasing an adiabatic loss at the portion of the side wall in which the cool air supply duct 10 is buried.